


Workman's Wages

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Sam Winchester, Non-Consensual Spanking, Paddling, Poverty, Spanking, Teenchesters, food insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was <i>hungry</i>. Knees shaking, head heavy, stomach aching like it had never known how to do anything else. His vision even blurred a little. And he knew that it’d pass, that at least this sharp awful part of it would fade, but damn it, how was he supposed to work all day on three handfuls of cheerios?</p>
<p>Before his head cleared, before he thought, he slipped a pack of peanut butter crackers into his pocket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Workman's Wages

It wasn’t that Sam _liked_ spending a whole day in the middle of summer doing day labor for a no-name grocery store somewhere in rural Tennessee. But the car needed repairs, Dad had just bought some new gun that was apparently six kinds of special and wouldn’t do anything but work with it, the credit cards were close to maxed, and Dean couldn’t even hustle poker or pool because his false ID had gotten snapped in a bar fight two towns back and they were still waiting on Dad’s contacts for a new one. So, Sam and Dean had walked into town that morning from the cabin they were staying in (renting, Sam guessed, since there was power), and started self-advertising.

Sam knew he’d been lucky to get anything. He’d just turned fourteen, after all, and hardly looked it. But Paul, proud owner of F-Mart (the whole word “food” being, apparently, too long to fit on the sign), had settled for the whole ask-me-no-questions-I’ll-tell-you-no-lies routine and set Sam to stocking.

It was okay. The boxes weren’t too big, there was a fan, and though they’d never gotten around to exact terms, money was definitely in the picture at the end of the day. Sam would settle for groceries, though. Dad had waved him and Dean out the door with vague instructions not to be back to the cabin until evening, or bedtime, or something, and it wasn’t like they’d packed lunches. Yesterday had been ceaseless driving and then moving in, which meant lunch was beef jerky and squished-up bread, and dinner was canned corn and crackers that they’d had since—since Virginia, probably. This morning they’d polished off a box of cheerios. Sam wasn’t _hungry_ , exactly, wasn’t persistent-headache-hungry or gnawing-pit-hungry or can’t-clearly-process-a-simple-goddamn-equation-hungry, but it was pretty distracting to spend all day looking at food he couldn’t have. Touching it, even. Putting it right out on the shelves in neat rows for other people to buy.

He tried to distract himself with long drinks at the water fountain by the restrooms. It worked for a while, kept him going quietly while Paul and the cashier took turns on lunch break. Around three, though, when he started refilling the snacks aisle, he started cursing his imagination. Little Debbies, goldfish, fruit rollups, poptarts—he could smell everything, could almost taste it, except he knew he wasn’t tasting it.

Dean probably found somewhere better to work than a freaking grocery store, Sam thought, straightening a stack of Swiss Cake Roll boxes with angry precision. Somewhere that wouldn’t remind him about eating all the freaking time.

Then suddenly, as he knelt on the floor in front of the crackers, it hit.

It hit, and Sam was _hungry_. Knees shaking, head heavy, stomach aching like it had never known how to do anything else. His vision even blurred a little. And he knew that it’d pass, that at least this sharp awful part of it would fade, but damn it, how was he supposed to work all day on three handfuls of cheerios?

Before his head had cleared, before he thought, Sam slipped a pack of peanut butter crackers into his pocket.

Didn’t eat them. Didn’t even open them. But they were there, solid, a reassurance that he was going to eat later.

Sam pulled himself up. Wiped his sweaty forehead. Headed for the water fountain.

Paul got a glimpse of him. “Break again already, Sam?”

“Just a drink, sir,” he said.

“All right, just make it quick.”

“Yes sir.” Sam did, ingesting cold water as fast as it would spout out before turning resolutely back to the snack aisle. He hadn’t known Paul had been noticing his water breaks. He’d have to be more careful.

The day stretched on. Being hungry got to be less painful and more of a drag, but Sam did his best to keep up the pace he’d set for himself. Slacking wouldn’t do him any good.

By five, he started wondering when closing time was. By six, he started wondering when Dean would start looking for him. By six-thirty, the store was pretty much empty, and Sam was in the stockroom with nothing much to do but tidy up and wonder how much he was going to get paid. Minimum wage was four dollars and seventy-five cents an hour, but since he wasn’t working legally it might be less. Still, he’d been here since ten. That was more than eight hours, which meant that if Paul was fair, he’d probably get thirty bucks, thirty-two. Thirty-five if he was lucky. And then he and Dean would go somewhere else and get something for dinner, because Sam was getting sick of this place.

He had just started sweeping the stockroom, taking it slowly because he’d checked the sign on the door and apparently closing time was seven, when Paul came in. Sam kept sweeping, wanting to mention payment but figuring it’d be best to wait, best to let the guy paying be the one to bring it up.

Paul checked the shelves. Sam watched from the corner of his eye and hoped he hadn’t done anything wrong. No criticism was forthcoming, though, so he found the dustpan and dumped the dirt into the big stockroom trashcan, then returned the broom to its corner.

Paul turned to face him then. “Well, you worked,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

“Yes sir,” Sam said.

“We’ll head to the front and square up, then.”

Sam smiled at that. “Yes, sir.”

Paul motioned for Sam to go in front of him. Sam did, hanging up the dustpan on the hook above the trashcan as he went. And his flannel caught on the trashcan.

He was straightening it out and heading for the door when suddenly Paul was very close to him, taller than he’d seemed before, and pointing.

“What’s that?” he demanded. Loud. Rough. Sam backed away, glanced down.

The peanut butter crackers were sticking out of his pocket.

“I—” Sam stuttered. “I wasn’t—”

Paul grabbed him by the collar, spun him away from the door. “You stealing from me, kid?”

Sam’s mouth went dry as he found himself backed up against a shelf. He couldn’t say no. The evidence was right there.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, wild and desperate, when he finally moistened his lips enough to speak. “I—I hadn’t eaten all day—I’m sorry—”

Paul shook him. “No excuse for crime, boy!”

“I know, sir.” Shit, Sam thought, he was going to call the police. Sam was going to get arrested, and he wouldn’t get paid, and Dad was going to be pissed as hell.

Paul slammed him up against the shelf. The metal edges dug into his back and one echoed dully against his skull.

“I’m going to give you some options,” Paul said. “Number one, I call the police and you get to see the inside of a holding cell. You planning on that when you stuck that pack of crackers in your pocket?”

“No, sir,” said Sam quietly. He was banking on those other options. This wouldn’t be his first arrest, but that just meant he knew what he had to look forward to.

“Number two,” Paul went on, “you hand those back over; I forget you worked here for the day. You never come back to my store, and none of this ever happened.”

Sam’s stomach dropped. That still meant he wouldn’t get paid, and if he didn’t get paid he’d have to lie to Dad and say he hadn’t found any work, because Dad would still be pissed as hell about Sam throwing away a whole day’s earnings over crackers. And he might have to lie to Dean, too, because Dean might tell Dad. You never knew with Dean.

But it was better than getting arrested.

“Number three,” said Paul, and Sam looked up, feeling a violent surge of hope.

“Number three, you hand those crackers over and I pay you half wages. But before I do that, I cross the street to my house, dig out the old oak paddle I used on my boys till they got grown, and you bend over and take it till I decide you’ve learned your lesson.”

Sam swallowed, shut his eyes. Then he opened them again and said, “Okay.”

“Okay?” repeated Paul.

“Option three, sir,” Sam clarified. His voice shook a little, but not much. He didn’t want a paddling, especially not when he didn’t know how bad it would be, but it was better than getting arrested or losing all the money. There was less of a chance of Dad laying into him, if he found out. And Sam figured he could probably hide it. He hid all sorts of injuries at school, after all.

Paul was nodding. “Kelly—the cashier—is still here, closing up. I’ll send her home when I get back with the paddle. Now, you gonna give me those crackers?”

Sam pulled them out of his pocket and handed them over. He wasn’t hungry anymore, anyway.

“You sit down on those crates and don’t budge.”

He sat. Paul left. Sam heard him talking to Kelly the cashier, and then the little bell on the door jingled. Sam lowered his head into his hands and tried not to think.

By the time he heard the door jingle again, though, he was breathing fast, feeling sick, kicking his feet nervously against the crate he sat on because it was too tall for him to rest them on the floor.

“Kid.”

That was Paul, in the door of the stockroom. Sam scrambled to his feet.

“Sir.”

The paddle was in Paul’s hand. It was pretty big. Sam tried not to look at it—he wanted to, wanted to know what he was up against, but he didn’t want to look like he was scared. So he stood still, looking down at his hands, and waited for instructions.

“Lose the jeans.”

He kicked off his shoes and shrugged out of them, folded them up half-heartedly. He took off his flannel, too, because he was getting sweaty. The t-shirt and boxers were good enough.

Paul gestured to the crate. Sam dropped his jeans and shirt beside it. Then he bent over, resting his folded arms on the top of it.

Without delay, there were three strokes—middling ones, hard enough to sting, but not enough to make Sam flinch. A thought surged up: if the whole paddling was like this, he’d make it with no trouble at all. Then:

“We’ll start with a good dozen. See what that does.”

Sometime between the words and the first crack and thud and blur of pain, Sam realized the first three had been warning, warm-up, play.

He was sucking a breath through his gritted teeth when the second real stroke hit, stinging against the skin and sore deep down. Either Paul was stronger than he looked, or he had an alarming amount of experience at this.

Three. Sam rocked forward onto his toes, started counting the seconds while he waited. Focus, Sam. Center. One, two, three, four. In, out, in, out.

He heard it coming this time, drew in a breath and released slowly as the paddle slammed into his thighs. That was a third of them; he could probably tough it out through the eight that were left. But then Paul had said _start_ with a dozen, and Sam didn’t want to think about what that meant. He wasn’t used to paddles, didn’t know how much he could take with one.

Paul hit again and Sam thought about other things that hurt, about shooting with a dislocated shoulder, about Dad stitching up cuts and pouring peroxide over them. This wasn’t like that, he told himself, but it didn’t help; thinking about hunting injuries was just making him tense up worse. As he tried to ease his body from rigid to steady, the sixth one caught him right across the crease where he sat, and he gasped.

He could see Dad shaking his head at that, hear Dean’s voice: _damn it, Sam._ So Sam screwed up his face. He was halfway done, probably. He could keep quiet that long, take his licks like a man.

Because, after all, he’d earned them (and there was number seven); he’d broken the law, and not even for hunting, just for stupid, selfish reasons, and he’d gotten _caught_ (eight, and his breath hitched in his throat). Dean had been stealing since he was freaking five years old and he didn’t get caught.

Nine. Sam wasn’t Dean.

Ten. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth and held still as the soreness rushed through him, then settled in.

Eleven, and then a long pause. Unsteady breaths, clenching fists, and then the swish. Then the crack more felt than heard, stinging and hot. Sam swallowed, hoped it was over.

“So, kid,” said Paul. “What d’you have to say for yourself?”

He swallowed again and tried to keep his voice steady. “I’m sorry, sir. I was wrong to try to steal from you and I deserved to be turned in to the police. Thank you for not—not doing that.”

Paul swung at him again, sudden and hard. “Thank you for what?”

“Uh,” Sam faltered, and spat out a guess. “Thank you for paddling me, sir.”

“You wanna try that without the attitude, kid?”

Defiance flashed through Sam, but he squelched it. This wasn’t like when Dad was angry and Sam was going to be stuck with him no matter what. If he just convinced Paul he was sorry—and he was, he _was_ sorry—then he could go; it would be over.

He made his voice level and even and contrite, shaped the stupid words. “Thank you for paddling me, sir.”

But Paul started hitting again, fast harsh blows. Stunned, Sam bore down on his folded arms. He tried not to think about how his legs were shaking now or how his hands were sweating. He tried not to think about the pulsing pain. He tried not to think at all, imagined Dean telling him to _man up_ and to _quit being a wuss_ but he couldn’t do it, he just couldn’t, because the licking didn’t stop.

He was leaning for dear life against the crate and it didn’t stop. His face was wet with hot tears and it didn’t stop. His knees half-gave with each stroke and he could hardly make himself straighten back up to take the next and it still didn’t stop.

It was never going to stop. Dean would be looking for him. He wouldn’t be able to train, so he wouldn’t be able to hide this from Dad, and Dad would be so mad and he couldn’t handle that, not now—

“Please,” he gritted out through his tears at last, and he’d been taught never to beg, never even to ask if he could help it, but he couldn’t help it now. “Sir, I’m sorry—please, thank you for paddling me; thank you for not turning me in. I’m sorry, I promise I’m sorry.”

Two more, right on the two most tender places, and then nothing. “Get up and get your jeans on,” said Paul.

Sam moved fast, because he knew if he went slow it would hurt more. When he’d dragged on his jeans and stuffed his feet into his shoes, he picked up his flannel shirt from the floor, then sent a tentative glance at Paul.

Paul’s face was still hard. “You do that again, I’ll paddle you and then have you arrested, understand?”

“Yes sir,” said Sam, wiping at the stubborn tears that were still falling.

“Stealing’s a damn stupid thing to do. Hope you know that now.”

“Yes sir.”

Paul nodded. “Come to the counter and we’ll square up.”

Sam had forgotten, forgotten about money, forgotten about all the work he’d done. But he followed Paul to the front of the store (still scrubbing at his tears, gritting his teeth at the movement and dreading the walk home) and Paul gave him his half pay, nine hours at two dollars and twenty-five cents an hour.

Sam said thank you. Paul told him to get out.

He went into the library and washed his face in the bathroom before going to find Dean where they’d split up that morning. Dean punched him playfully in greeting and they compared earnings, walking home in the gathering dusk.

“I’m hungry,” Dean said. “You hungry?”

Sam shook his head. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be hungry again.


End file.
